Cananda

Learn more about this country!

Cananda

Learn more about this country!

Enviromental Issues

Some of the environmental issues that Canada faces are acid rain, mining on the Canadian Shield, and over extracting timber. Acid rain is a huge problem that many countries face including Canada. Acid rain affects Canada's Lakes, rivers, forests, soil, wildlife, and buildings. It especially hurts the Great Lakes. Acid rain Raises the lakes' acidity making it hard for living things to survive. It also dissolves the calcium deposits, which lowers the calcium level in soil. This throws everything off balance. One of the solutions that would help Canada is adding limestone to the lakes. When limestone mixes with water, it creates a chemical reaction that helps make the lakes neutral instead of acidic. The Great Lakes is a plan that the government made to ensure the health and safety of the lakes. Mining in the Canadian Shield can cause many problems. It destroys the land and ruins the environment. People do reclamation to the land that they mined, but it's very expensive and takes a lot of time. Mining also releases harmful chemicals into the air and water. Canada has a lot timber. Canada is a leading producer of timber products. Citizens are concerned about too much logging destroying all the forests. When a timber company comes to a forest, they cut down a large amount of trees. This is called clear-cutting. Clear-cutting causes erosion, kills animals, and reduces the water quality. people are now planting more trees there in hopes to reduce the clear-cutting.

Canada's Government

Canada is a constitutional monarchy. The British monarchy is the head of state. Since the monarchy doesn't live in Canada, he or she chooses a governor-general to act in his or her place. Canada has a federal government system. It shares power between the federal government, the provincial government, and the territorial government. Some of the Canadian federal government's responsibilities are providing national defense, trading, banking,immigration, criminal law, and postal services. The provincial governments are responsible or education, property rights, local governments, hospitals, and provincial taxes. The territorial government have few responsibilities, but still practice self-government. the voting age in Canada is 18, but voting is not required by law. Canada is a Parliamentary democracy. It is divided into legislative and judicial branches. The Parliament is the legislative branch. The House of Commons, the Senate, and the governor-general make up the legislative branch. The citizens elect representatives for the House of Commons. The leader of the party with the most votes becomes the prime minister. The prime minister is the head of the government. The prime minister and cabinet make up the executive branch. Canada also has a federal and provincial court system. The highest court in the country is the federal Supreme Court. The prime minister chooses the judges and the governor-general appoints them.